Lifestyle choices, life-prolonging medicines and a general rise in living standard are some of the things that have led to an aging population. Many elderly people are hospitalized in their late years and bound to their beds by medical reasons. For this reason, the aging population has led to an increase in stays at care homes. One issue of care homes is the care of patients that suffer from urinal and/or fecal incontinence.
If a patient cannot have his/her sanitary article changed relatively quickly after an insult of feces or urine has occurred, the patient may face problems with uncomfort, and even degeneration of skin health, such as rashes and pressure ulcers. Further, it is unpleasant for a patient who suffers from incontinence not to be able to indicate if an insult has occurred, which is sometimes the case for patients suffering from e.g. dementia or incapacitation.
On the other hand, if the sanitary article is changed too often-which may be the result of routines in a care home, stating for example that sanitary articles should be changed every four hours (independently if whether there have occurred insults or not)-this may lead to an unnecessarily high consumption of sanitary articles. This is of course a disadvantage as regards cost.
Commonly, the routine of changing sanitary articles in a care home or hospital, for example, depend on the time schedule of the nurses' rounds and thus patients may have to wear a soiled sanitary article for a long time. During these rounds, the nurses rely on visual inspection and odor to decide if an absorbent article needs changing.
Also, it is common that several patients share one room, so even if a nurse detects that an insult has occurred in the room by the odor of feces, the nurse has to determine which one of the patients that needs changing. This scenario is also possible in a children's hospital or in natal care where the children wear diapers.
The pungent odors associated with feces are due to a complex mixture of compounds produced by bacterial action which result in odorous gases emitted, and detection of fecal insults may be made using sensors based on the detection of these gases. Such gas sensors are previously known.
Gases with strong odor emitted from feces include gases such as indole, skatole and mercaptans as well as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia. In particular, heavy organic compounds such as mercaptans (methyl sulfides) and hydrogen sulfide may spread widely as well and linger in a room after a fecal insult occurred. Hydrogen gas is also associated with feces, but is a volatile gas and hence does not travel far or linger as long as the heavier gases.
Gases specific for feces and urine may be used to detect the occurrence of a fecal insult. The patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,709,222 discloses a body waste detector that includes a gas sensor adapted to detect the presence of at least one gas associated with urine and at least one gas associated with feces over a predetermined time interval. Thereafter, the detector indicates the presence of waste. The system is used for detecting the local presence of body waste of one person. Therefore, each possible source of body waste must be provided with a detector, and each detector must be inspected in order to determine if and where feces are present.
Based on the issues set forth above, there is a need for improved systems and methods in order to detect the occurrence of a fecal insult as well as determine the location of the insult in an accurate and reliable manner.